Beant Singh Assassination Case: Supreme Court Defers Hawara’s Jail Transfer Plea To March 11

The bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh adjourned the matter after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta sought an adjournment on behalf of the Union government.

Hawara, a member of the banned terrorist outfit Babbar Khalsa, is serving imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life in connection with the August 31, 1995 blast at the entrance of the civil secretariat in Chandigarh, which killed former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh and 16 others. He has been lodged in Tihar Jail for several years.

On September 27 last year, the apex court had issued notices to the Centre, the Chandigarh administration, and the governments of Delhi and Punjab on Hawara’s plea, seeking their responses on the question of his continued confinement in the national capital.

In his petition, Hawara contended that his continued incarceration in Delhi is unjustified, as no criminal case against him is pending in the city. He argued that since he is a native of Punjab’s Fatehgarh Sahib district and is serving a sentence arising out of a case registered in Punjab, he ought to be confined in a prison within the state.

The plea highlighted that Hawara’s conduct in prison has been without blemish for nearly 19 years, save for an alleged jailbreak on January 22, 2004, when he escaped custody but was subsequently arrested. It was submitted that the solitary incident from two decades ago cannot be a continuing ground to deny him transfer to Punjab.

Hawara further claimed that as many as 36 cases were allegedly foisted on him after the assassination of Beant Singh, and that he has been acquitted in all except one. Drawing attention to parity, the petition pointed out that another person convicted in the same case and involved in the jailbreak has already been shifted out of Tihar to a jail in Chandigarh.

Rejecting the “high-risk prisoner” label attached to him in the past, the plea stated that the mere fact that he was once considered a security risk cannot, by itself, justify his continued detention in Delhi indefinitely. It also underscored his personal circumstances, noting that his wife has passed away, his mother is in a coma in the United States, and his daughter resides in Punjab.

The petition framed a broader constitutional question, asking whether a prisoner accused and convicted in the backdrop of serious social upheaval, but who has led a disciplined and unblemished prison life for nearly two decades, can be denied transfer to his home state solely on the basis of past perceptions of risk.

Hawara was sentenced to death by a trial court in March 2007. However, in October 2010, the Punjab and Haryana High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, directing that he shall remain in jail for the rest of his life. Appeals filed both by Hawara and by the prosecution challenging the high court’s verdict are presently pending before the Supreme Court.

The matter will now be taken up for further hearing on March 11.

Case Title: Jagtar Singh Hawara v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi

Bench: Justice MM Sundresh and NK Singh

Hearing Date: February 17, 2026